Sugar McFly Not Quite a Time Lord
by Teaandchemistry
Summary: Future!Fic- sort of. After one of Rory's experiments backfires, he, and his friends Sugar and Harmony must go back in time to right some wrongs- before they fade away to nothing. Contains Faberry, Brittana and Klaine.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Glee. If I did, then, well- let's just say it would be a VERY different show.

WARNING: Yes, I spell the short form of "mother" m-u-m. This is because I'm Australian. Yes, I know the story is set in America. I hope this doesn't bother you, dear reader. If people are bothered enough by it, I will change the spelling in future chapters.

Feedback please! Enjoy!

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

Prologue

Sugar Lopez-Pierce was normal. Well, as normal as a girl with two mums could be. Even in the year 2036, society still hadn't completely accepted the idea of same-sex marriages. So, really, by the moral, non-judgmental worldview that she had grown up with, she was normal.

But, thanks to a little Irish, ahem, problem, her circumstances were about to be turned upside down.

If she didn't change these circumstances by midnight, October 12th, 2036, she'd be a lot less than upside down.

She, and all she knew, would cease to exist.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

Sugar slammed her locker shut. The retinal scan pad in the centre of the door bleeped its final Morse code-esque message for the day before fading back into crystals behind the glass. Sugar hated the retina scans- they hurt her eyes, and she already had to wear glasses despite both of her parents having near-perfect eyesight. The locker to her right slammed shut the next instant, revealing wavy, near-black hair and spectacles, both of which belonged to her best friend, Harmony. The pale girl turned around, gently settling the back of her head on the locker door. She sighed.

"Thank God that's over. I don't think I would've survived another moment of that stupid professor's drivel."

Sugar turned to look her childhood companion and teenage confidante in the eyes- well, she would be looking straight into her eyes, if Harmony's weren't shut tight, her forehead wrinkled in a mixture of headache and relief.

"Well, it's Economics. What did you expect?"

"Hey, I didn't sign up for that class. Why the hell did they have to make it compulsory?"

Sugar screwed up her nose. "Apparently, if we want to stay off the streets and employed, we have to know about every which way the world can go wrong."

"I know, it's just so depressing."

Sugar smiled weakly, tugging at the other girl's wrist in an effort to get her out of the hallway and into the car park. "Well, maybe we should just take it as a reality check. Our parents didn't have to worry about any of this stuff, if they didn't want to. But, unfortunately, America thrives on capitalism, and the idea that they have dominion over every other country in the world."

Harmony groaned. "See what I mean? This is why I don't do history. I don't understand why you chose it. It's useless. Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler- they're all dead. Why study them?"

Sugar rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly. "It's not so much studying the people, but what they did that changed the way that we behave as a society today. If it weren't for Stalin, a lot more countries would have probably tried, and failed miserably, to implement Communism. If it weren't for the moon landing, both the Americans and the Soviets would be living in constant fear. And if it weren't for Rosa Parks, Shaniqua Jones would still be sitting by herself in the back of the bus, if at all."

They had reach Harmony's car, and she pulled open the passenger door for Sugar. Harmony threw her bag over the back seat, her brow furrowing more as she did so. "I still don't get why you find it so interesting."

Sugar shuffled in her seat, capturing Harmony's attention fully. "Well, what would you do if you knew what was going to happen in the future? What if you could go back through history, and change something? What would you do to make the world a better place? Maybe you could save a life, even save the world."

Harmony stilled for a moment, then scoffed, slamming Sugar's door. She slid across the bonnet, jumped in the driver's side and fastened her seatbelt.

"Sugar, I think you've been watching too much Doctor Who. Time travel doesn't- can't- exist."

"I resent that! One can never watch too much Doctor Who. The Doctor's a better history teacher than any other. And I know time travel isn't real- it's just a dream, really."

Harmony smirked as she turned the ignition, and the car kicked into life. "You've been hanging out with Rory too much anyway. When you talk to him, you make me look blonde... and, knowing you sometimes, that's saying something."

"Well, most of what he said goes over my head anyway. Remember when we were twelve, and he was addicted to that Meet the Robinsons movie?"

"How could I forget? He wouldn't shut up about the damn memory device- thingy."

"Believe it or not, he actually showed me a _prototype_ of it."

"Seriously? When?"

"When we were both freshmen. It was only a month before you moved from New York. This was when I still thought he was just a science geek that only socialised through World of Warcraft."

"Gosh, who plays that anymore? And did the thing actually work?"

Sugar's disparaging look formed into a lopsided grimace. "I don't think so. He kept pretending that he could tell what was gonna happen next, or faking amnesia. But you know him; he can't hide a damn thing from anybody." Sugar felt a buzz from her pocket. She reached in and pulled out her phone. She tapped twice on the surface of it and a message came up.

Harmony peeked over from the driver's side. "Who is it? What does it say?"

Sugar pulled the phone out of Harmony's gaze. "For your information, miss nosy, it's the mad man himself. Here, lemme read the message;

Movies at my place tonight? I'll provide popcorn... and the GREATEST TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT SINCE THE TOASTER!"

Harmony snickered. "What was so great about the toaster? It cooks bread. Occasionally turns it into something that looks like coal."

Sugar slid the phone back in her pocket. "Well, do you wanna go tonight or what?"

"What, and encourage this madness? Nuh-uh. Besides, I've got a composition due for music on Monday."

"Relax, Harm, you always come up with them at the last minute and ace them anyway. I'm going, even if you aren't."

Harmony groaned. "Ok, fine. I'll go with you and see what sort of thingamabob Irish has concocted this time."

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

"Rory, don't stay up too late, you've got a college football game to go to with your father tomorrow morning!"

"Alright, Dad!" Rory called from the basement of their quaint suburban home. It was certainly not quite what life was like in Ireland, all those years ago. Rory still had flashbacks of cold winters spent in front of the fire in their spacious home on the northern hillside. It's where e fell in love with science- how the wind whistled through trees, how the waves crashed along the shore- how his father's stories of the leprechauns could possibly be true. Which, of course, according to science, they couldn't be. Still, however many memories he had, he didn't take life in America for granted for a second. He had friends here, family, and access to cable TV. Rory heard a knock on the door to the basement stairs. He quickly adjusted the sheet covering his latest masterpiece, before sprinting up the stairs to greet his friends.

Too late. Harmony opened the door with her usual gusto- too much gusto- and slammed Rory square in the nose. Luckily, he managed to get a hold onto the banister before tumbling halfway down the stairs. He glanced back up at the door, squeezing his nostrils shut with his left hand while still gripping the banister with his right, to find Harmony's shocked and deeply apologetic visage and Sugar's amused one.

Harmony offered a hand out to Rory, worry still indenting her brow. "I'm so sorry, Rory. Are you okay?"

"Yeb." Rory replied through the torrent of blood issuing from his nose. "Jusb grand."

Sugar pulled a tissue from her purse and held it to Rory's bleeding nose, while Harmony encouraged him down the stairs and into the nearest bean bag.

"Thank you guys." Rory said, folding the tissue over to a side that wasn't soaked in red.

"So, what is it that you wanted to show us?" Sugar inquired, honestly curious. Harmony just rolled her eyes.

Rory sniffed- by this point, much of the blood had drained from his nostrils, and he was again capable of coherent speech. "As you both know, Spielberg has been an inspiration to me my entire life."

"Oh no, not Spielberg again." Harmony near- whimpered. Ignoring her apparent discomfort, Rory continued.

"His portrayal of time travel in the _Back to the Future_ trilogy has- if you'll pardon the pun- sparked an idea. What if time travel, or rather, temporary traversal of a different part of the time plane, could actually happen? Sure, it would require mass amounts of energy, but, according to earlier calculations, under the right conditions, it could be done."

Sugar tried in vain to grasp what he was saying, so she settled for a nod and asked, "So... how?"

The glint that often entreated Rory's eyes was there again. He strolled over to the sheet- covered object in the corner of the room, pulling the sheet off with a flourish. The object was revealed to be a large metal cage, with 2 copper frames attached to its extremities and a large amount of tubing lining the inside of it, initiating and terminating at a small black box, which sat about waist height in the device. "With the help of a miniature Hadron collider, something large enough to transport living organisms through time, but small enough to efficiently permeate the fabric of space-time, grit, spit, and a hell of a lot of duct tape."

"Whoah, wait a Hadron collider? Now I'm no genius, but I've heard that's pretty high-tech, dangerous stuff." Harmony said, now gripping the arm of her chair a little tighter.

"Well, it wasn't easy, but I managed to figure out a way to contain it. Well, in theory." Rory explained. "Which is where you guys come in."

"Wait... you want us to test that thing? Jeez, Rory, we're friends, but I'm not gonna take a split atom in the heart for you." Harmony stated incredulously.

"What? No! No, I'm gonna test it, I just need you to make observations... and tell my parents if I don't make it back."

Sugar couldn't believe what Rory was saying. "Rory, you're only a senior in High School. If this thing works at all, it'll probably blow you up. I'm not gonna let you do that."

Rory shook his head. "Ye of little faith- I've already written a thesis, sent it to the local university, and they think it's gold. So, whether or not I live to tell the tale, I'm going. Back in time, 25 years."

With that, he thrust a stopwatch into Harmony's hand and a clipboard into Sugar's, before disappearing into the thickly-wired cage, slamming the opaque burnished silver door behind him. Sugar took a step towards the device in an effort to get a closer look, but Harmony seized her wrist and pulled her back behind the couch. The surge protector next to them began to spark, and Sugar squealed.

"Don't worry, it's meant to do that!" Rory's muffled voice echoed from the metal device. "It powers the collider!"

All the same, Sugar and Harmony crawled over to the other side of the room, tipped a coffee table and took refuge behind it. But Sugar couldn't help herself, and peeked over the top of the table at the device.

The copper frames were slowly moving up and down the body of the device, and the piping around the machine was glowing blue. From within, she could see Rory's silhouette. There was a large whirr, then a BANG- and the entire thing, surge protector and all was gone- and Rory was gone with it.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

Sugar stood, tugging Harmony's sleeve. Harmony was still cowering behind the coffee table, eyes squeezed shot, hands clamped over her ears.

"Harmony, it's all right. Come look."

Harmony cracked open one eye, and slowly ascended to her feet. When she saw that the device had vanished, her jaw just about hit the floor.

"Wha- where'd he go? Where'd he GO!"

"Well, I think he might have gone to the past. Just an educated guess."

"But- that's impossible. I don't care what sort of sciency papers he's got on this, Rory's a crackpot who's pulling the wool over our eyes, because time travel cannot ever, EVER happen."

BANG! Harmony screeched, immediately shrinking back behind the table, pulling Sugar down in a heap beside her.

"Ow! What the hell, Harmony!"

Harmony didn't respond. She had her hands over her ears again and her eyes squeezed shut. Sugar sighed a barely audible sigh over the whirring and banging in the back ground. Even if she didn't want to admit it to her more cynical friend, she was slightly concerned for Rory, even for themselves. The whirring slowed to a crawl, eventually fading to nothing. She heard footsteps, coming closer.

"What did I tell you? It did work!"

Sugar whipped around. Rory was standing over the table, grinning like the idiot that he was. She tackled him to the ground, partially proud and partially relieved that he not only got out of that infernal metal death trap alive, but finally made something that actually worked.

Harmony crawled out from behind the table, eyes lighting up when she saw Rory. Rory grinned back at her. However, Harmony's smile turned into a scowl, and she slapped him square in the face. Rory's reaction was priceless.

"What the hell, Harmony? Do you want me to start bleeding again?"

"You scared the crap out of us, Hummel- Anderson! Don't ever do that AGAIN!"

Rory ran a hand through his hair. "Uh... actually, I _was_ planning on going into the future, picking up a more efficient power source for the machine..."

Slap. Harmony hit him again.

Rory grasped gingerly at his cheek. "Some other time, maybe?"

"Yeah, Irish, another time, like your distant future. Very distant future."

Rory pulled himself and Sugar to their feet. "I've got to tell my fathers. And the university. And maybe NASA." He immediately sprinted up the stairs, pulling the door open to find... a strange, scruffy- looking giant-like man looming over the doorway.

"What- who are you? Get out of my house, you lousy squatters! All of you, go, now! ... What's that big thing in the corner? Whatever it is, get it out of my basement, otherwise it goes to the scrap yard!"

Rory scrambled back down the stairs, pulling Harmony and Sugar into the device, flicking a couple switches and almost punching the LCD- screen attached to the silver piping. The device started sparking and whirring again, before blinding them all with a brilliant white light.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

The three of them tumbled from the machine onto pavement. Goodness knows where the pavement was, but at least it was pavement not currently occupied by a creepy tall guy with too much facial hair. Harmony blew her hair out of her face and dusted off her skinny jeans.

"Once again, Irish- what the HELL!"

"Uh, oops?"

Harmony brought her hand over her shoulder to slap him again, but Sugar managed to get between them before she could follow through.

"Harmony, slapping Rory isn't gonna fix anything."

"Really, Sugar? 'Cuz it's sure gonna make me feel better."

"Harmony, turn around, count to ten. Calm down. Rory, what do you think happened?"

"Uhm, I'm not sure. That guy certainly wasn't there when I left... I might have changed something in the past, creating a completely different tangent in the future?"

"Really, Irish?" Harmony snapped. "How come we're in this supposed tangential reality too? We didn't go with you in this stupid hunk of junk." She spat, giving the device a forceful kick. "At least, not of our own will."

"Hey, be careful! We're gonna need that, if we want to get out of this mess. My theory is that, when the device was initiating its past-cycle mechanism, it emitted a low-frequency radiation that, somehow, attached everything in the close vicinity to its respective reality. At least it didn't happen with purely spacial dimensional travel, otherwise we'd still be running from... whoever was in my house... I mean his house... well, really, I mean... oh gosh, now I'm confused."

"Well, get your head together, because I have questions. What could you have possibly done to change our reality to one where the furry T-rex is in your house?"

"Uhm... well, I may have talked to someone from the past, or, rather, she talked to me. For some reason, I landed in a hallway lined with lockers. It looked like our school, but a lot dirtier. She came up to me and, well, we spent a good hour talking."

"Talking? About what?" Sugar asked.

"We talked about current affairs. Well, past affairs, really, I'm desperately curious about the past, Sugar, you know that as well as I do. She seemed quite well-read on the current economic, social, and political information of the time."

"What time, exactly?"

"2011. She was talking about presidential campaigns, social prejudice, all that stuff. And then she started talking about cats."

Something clicked in Sugar's brain. "Cats? What about them?"

Rory shrugged. "She mentioned something about putting her cat on an Atkin's diet. And something about a girl... her name started with S..."

"Rory?"

"Yes, Sugar?"

"I think you were talking to my mother."

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

Rory's eyes widened as he realised what he just did. Really? He'd just talked to a teenage version of Sugar's mum? No wonder she looked familiar. But what could he have said or done to her that created a future where his house was not actually his? He'd been careful not to reveal any information about the future. He'd been especially careful to make her feel like she was just talking to a normal fellow student from 2011. He scratched his head- well, at least he tried. His scalp met no resistance from his fingers, and his fingers felt nothing of his scalp, despite the fact that his hand and head were clearly in the correct physical proximity. He pulled his hand down to his eyes.

Except there wasn't a hand, merely a faint outline of where Rory's hand used to be.

Why?

Oh.

Oh dear.

That's why.

Rory looked back up to Sugar and Harmony.

Harmony was missing her right earlobe, and Sugar was missing only the very tip of her nose.

Hypothesis confirmed. Rory stood, fear gripping his insides and entreating his usually sparkling eyes.

"Get in the time machine. Something's wrong."

Harmony rose her eyebrow. "Well, yeah, doofus. We're stuck in a tangential reality."

"No, I mean, there's something worse wrong!"

With his remaining hand, he plucked Sugar's bag from her shoulder, earning him a yelp of disapproval, and rummaged around, finally pulling out a makeup compact and flicking open the lid.

"Sugar, look at your face!" Rory said, turning the compact so Sugar could see her face in the mirror.

"Rory, what is wrong with you? Nothing's wrong with my- oh my gosh!" She squealed. "What the hell happened to my nose!"

"The same thing that happened to my hand." Rory said, lifting his other arm. He snapped the compact shut, tossed it back in Sugar's bag. She quickly snatched it back from him, flinging it back over her shoulder. Rory opened the door to the time machine, and Sugar scampered inside after him.

"Harmony, come on!"

"Nuh- uh. I want an explanation before I set foot in that thing."

Rory's head popped out of the doorway behind Sugar's. "There's no time. Get in, otherwise you'll be able to hear just as well as Sugar will be able to smell, in a couple of minutes."

Harmony groped at the sides of her head, shrieking when her right hand met no resistance. She tore inside the time machine, slamming the door behind.

"Ok, I'm good now. Let's get out of here- and hope to God you know what you're doing, Rory."

Rory punched at the screen, green crystal bars flickering on and off, before finally settling on a date- October 13th, 2011. The machine kicked into life, and the copper frames began to glide along the sides once more. A wire in the ceiling jolted with electricity, showering sparks on top of the three steadily disappearing teenagers.

"It's never done that before." Rory mused, causing Sugar to collapse against the side of the machine and Harmony to turn pale green. Brilliant white light filled the small capsule, before exploding into black.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

The machine landed on its side- luckily with the door still facing outwards. Harmony was sprawled on top of Rory, who was in turn trying to simultaneously open the door and prevent himself from collapsing on top of an unconscious Sugar.

"Harmony, gerroff!" Rory almost growled through clenched teeth, just as he managed to get the door open. Harmony tumbled out onto the pavement, Rory following suit- ending with him on top of Harmony this time. Harmony, surprisingly strong, considering her lithe physique, shoved Rory off her, pulled herself to her feet and sprinted to a nearby trash can. She flung the lid off and began tearing her way through the trash. It was disgusting, but she was desperate. Right at the bottom of the barrel, under about a dozen banana skins and ten dozen empty Styrofoam coffee cups, she seized hold of paper and pulled it from the garbage. It was just what she was looking for- a newspaper. Today's newspaper. Well, not her today- newspapers disappeared when she was about five years old. She unfolded it (why do people fold newspapers before putting them in the trash anyway?) and read the top:

Lima News  
>Thursday, October 13th, 2011<p>

She lost it. And when Harmony lost it, she lost it big-time.

"IRISH! Get your ass over here!"

Oh dear. Harmony was scary when she was pissed. Rory immediately felt like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Nevertheless, he stood, turned, and face Harmony's wrath.

Harmony was seething. "First, you, without warning, completely alter our past. Second, you almost cause me not just to go deaf, but to lose my hearing- like, literally lose my ear- and third, you bring us back to TWO THOUSAND AND FREAKING ELEVEN?" She verbally attacked Rory, brandishing the paper, waving it rapidly back and forth, dangerously close to his face.

Rory swallowed. "Um... yes?"

Harmony's brow furrowed further her face contorting into what was about to be that look- that look that told him she would personally drag him down to hell, dismantle his limbs and throw them one by one into a pit of burning sulphur. Before he could give her the opportunity to do just that, he tried one more time-

"I can fix it, though?"

It really was more of a question than a statement, a plea for Harmony to allow him to escape with his life- and his genitals- but only if he was extra lucky. He looked up at Harmony, even stooping so low as to use puppy-dog eyes. No one could resist the puppy dog eyes- not even Harmony. Well, relatively normal Harmony, not furious Harmony. Thankfully, Harmony dropped the paper, slumping herself down on the park bench next to the trash can. A street lamp flickered on and off above it, bringing Harmony's face into the light. It illuminated something Rory had never seen- Harmony had allowed one tear to slide down her porcelain cheek.

"I'm so confused, Rory. And scared. How on Earth are you going to fix this?"

Rory plopped himself down beside her, securing an arm around her shoulders. Thankfully, his formerly transparent hand had now become completely opaque and corporeal.

"I don't know. But at least we're not fading away anymore."

Harmony again pressed her palms against the side of her head, slumping back against the bench again once she was met with the flexible cartilage of her outer ear. The she suddenly remembered. Harmony turned to Rory, eyebrows upturned in panicked concern.

"Where's Sugar?"

"Shh, calm down. She's still unconscious in the time machine."

"We should get her out of there."

Harmony stood, pulling at Rory's hand. She jogger over to the time machine and, gently as possible, pulled her friend out by her shoulders. Harmony looked back at Rory.

"Are you gonna help me or not? She's heavier than she looks."

Rory met her eyes. "Oh, right. Sure."

He walked over to the machine, grabbing Sugar's ankles.

"One, two, three, lift!"

They hoisted Sugar upwards- too far upwards. Her forehead collided with the door frame. Sugar groaned and her eyelids fluttered, but miraculously, she remained unconscious. Rory and Harmony carried her over to the park bench, carefully laying her down along it, kneeling on the pavement.

"Sugar?" Harmony prodded gently at her arm. "Wake up, Sugar." Sugar gave no response.

"Hold on." Rory said. He strode over to the time machine, taking from within it a small white box with a red cross on the front. He returned to the bench, opened the box and pulled out a broad, short, white plastic stick.

"What the hell is that?" Harmony hissed.

"Smelling salts. Hopefully the smell will wake her up."

"Smelling salts?" Harmony whipped the salts out of his hand, taking a whiff. She gagged. "Okay, if that doesn't wake her up, nothing will." She said, handing the stick back to Rory, who then waved it beneath Sugar's nostrils. Almost immediately, she started spluttering and wheezing.

"Rory, I thought I told you to get some new deodorant! You really stink!"

Rory chuckled. "Welcome back."

Sugar smiled back at him, before glancing upwards and squinting into the lamplight. "Where am I?"

"I think a more appropriate question would be, "when are we"." Harmony said, dropping the newspaper onto Sugar's stomach. Sugar sat up against the cold iron arm of the bench and straightened out the newspaper. She gasped.

"Two thousand and- Rory, I'm gonna faint again." Sugar said, gripping at her forehead

Rory went to pull out the smelling salts out again, but Harmony smacked his hands away from the first aid box.

"No. I could go a lifetime without smelling that nasty, icky stuff EVER again." Harmony pulled the first aid box towards her, cracked open an ice pack and placed it on Sugar's head.

"Thanks." She said.

"No problem. Looks like we're not going anywhere anytime soon."

"Well, in that case, I'd better go check the time machine for damage." Said Rory, attempting to stand up, only to hit the ground again, thanks to Harmony.

"You're not going anywhere, mister. I want to know every detail about how this happened. It's the only way we're gonna be able to get back to our reality- our present reality." Harmony tugged again on the sleeve of Rory's polo.

Rory sighed. "All right. Bear in mind, I'm making assumptions, and not factoring in variables, and-"

"Oh, just get on with it!"

"All right! I suppose this will make more sense if I start from the beginning. A couple of months ago, I started wondering about how time works- theories, like entropy, the laws of thermodynamics, that stuff. I figured if I could go back in time, make only the subtlest of changes, and make some qualitative observations once I'd returned to the future... I'd be able to eventually form a thesis, send it to a university, be hailed as a pioneer of science and retire by age 35. I knew that I'd be breaking fundamental rules of time travel, but... I was curious.

"So, the plan was to go back to a random, but relatively recent place in time, and make a tiny change to the place- say, putting a small rubber ball in a hallway. A busy hallway. I was going to do that- but then... Sugar, your mother- well, she spotted me. As one would be, she was curious as to what I was doing. To divert her attention, I struck up a conversation with her about the first thing I saw, which happened to be a campaign poster for a student presidential election. We ended up talking about what was happening around the world then, before she started talking about cats and I managed to make my escape, get back into the time machine and return a mere minute after I left. But then I come back to a present where there's a strange, tall man in my house, and... well, you guys know the rest.

"From this, I can deduce that my presence in that reality altered our existence somehow. By having an impact on someone from the past prevented us from existing in our present." Rory finished.

Sugar's eyes widened. "I think I understand. You went into the past, met my mum, and somehow stopped her ending up with my mama. Dammit, Rory!"

"Well, I didn't know!"

"Wait, but if it was only Sugar's parents that were affected, why did we start fading away too?" Harmony interjected.

"We must have somehow prevented a chain reaction from occurring."

"Which means our parents- all of them- are somehow linked." Sugar threw her thoughts into words.

"Why did we not know this before?" Harmony pondered.

"They must have severed their connections before we were born. They presumably haven't had contact with each other because- well, we don't exactly have a parents meet and greet in high school, do we?" Rory said, scratching at the pavement with a piece of gravel.

"All this time, and we never knew." Harmony mused, leaning back against the park bench. "But what do we do now?"

Rory set the gravel down, lifting his head with newfound determination.

"We have to somehow get Sugar's parents back together."


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry this took so long. I have absolutely no excuses for why, it just did.

Merry (late) Christmas!  
>Yeah, again, very sorry.<br>I kept to American spelling, 'cuz it seemed too British otherwise.  
>I don't own Glee, and I pity the fool who does, at the moment.<br>ONTO THE GOOD STUFF! 

PART 2

"Um, 'scuse me? How?" Harmony, ever the cynic, asked.

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? I find them, tell them I'm from the future, and that they have to get together so I don't go kafluey, right?" Sugar said.

Rory shook his head. "No, Sugar, you can't do that. If they knew, it would just freak them out. If anything, that would ruin our chances. We need to sit down and think this through, sort this out. We need identities, back stories- ones that won't get us in trouble- I know what you're thinking, Harmony, and we are not gonna pretend to be foreign exchange students. Well, you're not, anyway."

"Dammit. Why do you get to be an exchange student?" Harmony whined.

"Because, as you have put it so delicately before, I'm Irish. And you're not." Rory stated. "We need to make sure we fit into the environment, without looking too conspicuous. We need to be able to infiltrate our parent's lives, analyse the variables from our reality and this one, and form a sort of rapport between the two."

Harmony's slumped slightly. "Irish, it's too late for you to be speaking Einstein-ese. English, please?"

Rory sighed. "We have to meet our parents, figure out what went wrong with the relationships, and see if we can set ourselves up to fix it."

"Better. Oh, but one problem. We're from the _future_. Our parents are in _high school_. We don't _exist _yet, thus we have no identities. There's no way we'll be able to get into a school without identities, without our last names, even, and without a freakin' CLUE what to do!" Harmony's tone kept accelerating, and Rory was beginning to fear being slapped- again.

"Harmony. Calm. Please." Sugar gently consoled.

Harmony's nostrils flared. It didn't escape Rory's eyes.

"Harmony, I'll say it again, I'm sorr-"

"Sorry isn't cutting it, Hummel-Anderson. You better hope you still have a guardian angel in this time period."

Rory shot to his feet. "Guardian angel- Harmony, you're a genius!"

The look of absolute disdain in Harmony's face quickly dissolved into confusion. "I am?"

"Did your parents ever tell you stories of their high school days? Of the people they were friends with?"

They responded at the same time- Sugar with a "yes" and Harmony with a "no".

Sugar was surprised. "Really, Harmony? My moms never shut up about high school."

"Yeah, funny thing- my mom hasn't been around for the past eight years." Harmony lamented, with the slightest hint of bitterness in her voice.

"I'm sorry, I never knew-"

"Yeah, probably 'cuz I never told you."

"Well, why didn't you? You're my best friend." Sugar asked softly.

"Uh, ladies? Can we get back to the topic at hand?"

_Oh, Rory, ever the sensitive one_, Harmony thought. She sniffled a bit- oh no. She hadn't expected tears. Not again. Before tonight, she hadn't cried since she was 14 and had been dumped by her first boyfriend.

Sugar picked up on how internally distraught Harmony was. "Rory, can it wait a bit?" She pleaded. "Why don't you go check the time machine, see if we can't get it to take us somewhere a bit less... well, outside?"

"Oh, right. Got it." And with that, Rory picked up the first aid box, tucked it under his arm and returned to the time machine, leaving Sugar and Harmony well and truly alone. Sugar looked down at Harmony, still sitting on the pavement. She had her knees tucked up and was scratching at her wrists, like there were bugs crawling beneath her skin. Sugar sat up and gently seized the offending hand.

"Harmony, please, stop it. You're going to scratch your skin raw."

Harmony looked up to Sugar through moisture that was stinging the corners of her eyes. "Sorry. I do that when I get nervous, or..."

"Scared?"

"I was about to say when I think about Mom."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"So... if you don't mind me asking... what happened?"

Harmony inhaled deeply. "I don't know. I just came home from school one day when I was eight, and- Mama was sitting at the coffee table, crying her eyes out-"

"Hey, slow down. Your parents are gay too?"

"Mom was- is- bisexual."

"And you never told me... why?"

"Same reason I never told you why Mom left-because the moment I admitted it to someone, the moment someone else knew besides my Mama... it was public. It was real." She squinted, in an effort to stop the tears- but they came anyway.

Sugar pulled the ice pack off her forehead, slipped off the bench and sat beside Harmony, throwing her arms around her best friend. Harmony slumped into Sugar's embrace, the tears now flowing freely.

"That's- that's why I was so freaked when Rory came back that first time. When that man appeared in the doorway. When I started to disappear. I was scared for Mama. It's bad enough for her to lose her wife, but to lose me would kill her." Harmony sniffed again. "Then I realise she wouldn't be the wiser- it would be like I never existed. And Mom- they might still be together." That did it. Emotions and sobs wracked her body, and Sugar could do nothing but hold her and tell her that everything was going to be alright- something she wasn't even sure about.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

They sat there for a while. Hours, in fact. Harmony let time and dehydration take away her tears, and they both let silence envelop them. Sugar though only of comforting her friend, and Harmony thought only of the most terrible thing she could imagine- never seeing either of her parents again.

"Was it hard? Dealing with a divorce at eight years old?" Sugar broke the blissful silence, and the simultaneous terror that wrecked her heart and her head.

"They haven't divorced. Mom and Mama haven't seen each other for eight years. Neither of them did anything about it. But Mama still wears her wedding band. Every day." Harmony almost lost herself again to tears with the memory of her mother's pale hand.

"At least now you have an opportunity to make all that go away for good. We're gonna get our parents back together- or together in the first place, either way- and we're gonna make sure it stays that way."

A fierce determination flooded Harmony's visage. "Or I'll die trying."

Sugar beamed. "That's the girl I know."

"Are you two done yet?" Rory asked. It wasn't intended to be rude, but Rory had the impatience of a two-year-old.

"Harmony?" Sugar prompted.

Harmony wiped her face of any remaining tears and nodded. "Yeah, we're good."

"We've got bad news." Rory stated. "There's a bit of damage to the conducting frames, and all reserve power was used during our last trip. There's no way I can charge it or fix the frames unless I get it to a workshop, and then to a power source... so, uh, we're gonna be stuck here for a while." Rory winced, expecting Harmony to lose it at the bad news, but no reaction came. Sugar stood and helped Harmony to her feet. Harmony readjusted her beanie and brought her eyes up to meet Rory's. They were devoid of anger, of pity and frustration, but at the same time, they were devoid of elation, joy and contentment- they were empty. Harmony opened her dry mouth to speak.

"So, you were saying something about a guardian angel and me being a difference?"

Rory smiled. While the light may have not returned to her eyes, she still had the same old attitude. "There's someone in this time that we may be able to trust."

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

"Slow down, Irish. You want us to sneak into the bedroom of a paraplegic and convince him to help us?" Harmony tried to prevent the incredulity from sneaking its way into her tone.

"Well... yes, I do. And his name is Artie, I already told you that. He's smart enough to be able to help us, close enough to be able to give us inside information, but distant enough that he doesn't feel obliged to dob us in. My fathers told me he was one of the smartest kids they knew. One of the most observant ones, too."

"How will we know how to find him?" Sugar asked.

"Well, in ye olden days of 2011, they have a little something called the Yellow Pages." Rory grinned. "We've just gotta find a phone booth."

"And leave the time machine out? Rory, what if somebody finds it?" Sugar responded. She really was a lot smarter than most people gave her credit for.

"I hadn't thought about that. But we're not going to be able to move it far, it's way too heavy."

"Do you think we'd be able to push it into the bushes? We can leave a marker- nobody but us will ever know it was here." Sugar reasoned.

"Smart idea. Let's do it." Rory replied. He walked back over to the time machine, kneeled down at the end of it, and gave the machine a mighty shove. It move only a few inches.

"Uh, guys? Help, please? Otherwise, we may be here for a while."

Harmony sighed, walked over, dragging Sugar by the wrist, despite her protests against physical work, and kneeled down beside Rory.

"On three. One... two... three!"

With an almighty push, the three teenagers managed to shift the time machine a few feet. They continued to push, and now had enough momentum to fit it snugly between two trees and masked in a patch of scrub. Rory pulled a pocket knife out of the belt loop of his jeans, flicked it open and pondered a moment.

"How are we going to mark this place? It can't be anything too conspicuous... but then, we have to recognise it as well..."

"Oh, give me that." Harmony snapped impatiently, snatching the knife out of his hand. She walked to the outwards-facing side of the tree and whittled into the bark. Once she was finished, she stepped back to admire her handiwork. Rory and Sugar hopped over the scrub to see what she had marked the tree with. Into the bark was carved two sets of letters with a plus separating them, all enveloped by a heart.

"What- but- Harmony!" Rory stuttered.

"You wanted something personal, recognisable, yet relatively discreet? Best idea I had." Harmony retorted, folding up the knife and placing it in Rory's hand, before readjusting her scarf around her neck and pounding down the pavement. Before she disappeared behind a hedge, she turned back to her friends.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

"You're going the wrong way." Rory said.

"No I'm not." Harmony replied, before turning on her heel and continuing to walk.

"No, he's right." Sugar hollered after Harmony. "There's a phone box on down the street to our right. I can see it from here."

Harmony stopped. "I'm going the wrong way." She yelled back, before lowering her voice until only she could hear. "But it's the same way I've been going since I was thirteen." There was no way she would let her friends hear- or see- that. So she brought back the Harmony her friends knew, turned around, and started pacing down the street towards the phone box, with Rory and Sugar trailing behind her.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

"There it is- A & J Abrams, 3 Woodward Avenue. We could catch a bus there, it's not too far." Sugar said, while pointing at the name on the page, dimly lit by the flickering fluorescent light in the phone booth.

"No we couldn't." Rory said, while shaking his head.

"Well, why not?"

"Firstly, bus services stopped running an hour ago." Rory pointed to the bus timetable tacked to the interior of glass wall of the booth. "Secondly, we'd need money." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar bill. "Sugar, look at the note. Tell me what you see."

Sugar snatched up the note, turning it over in her hand. "I see a dollar bill. I see George Washington. That's about it."

"Exactly. In this day and age, the dollar bill had a pyramid-"

"With an eye over it on the back! Why didn't I think of that?"

"As soon as there was the huge Illuminati scare, the vast majority of notes were recalled and these-" he said, shaking the dollar bill- "were put out to replace them. Cost the government millions, just to keep the general public happy. If we use these notes in this day and age, someone may begin to suspect something. We can't risk it, for fear of starting a conspiracy theory- which will further shake up the timeline we've already messed with."

"So we effectively have nothing but the clothes on our backs." Harmony stated.

"We could hitch-hike."

"Nuh-uh. Mama told me to never hitch hike around Lima." Sugar bluntly refused.

"Future Lima, not this Lima." Rory, of course, resorted to the fourth dimension to try and persuade Sugar.

"Well, actually, Rory, this Lima is even worse. For Legal Studies I had to do an assignment on crime rates of the past relative to advancements in law enforcement. In the late 2000's up until the early 2020's, Lima was only safer than 2 percent of towns around the nation. Who's the smart one now, huh?" Sugar finished her diatribe with a grim smirk.

"So... does this mean we're walking?" Harmony sighed.

Rory admitted defeat. "I guess it does."

"We're going to die."

"No we're not."

"Yes, we are!"

Sugar groaned, threw her bag over her shoulder, and began storming in the general direction of Woodward Avenue- she knew even without a map where to go, perhaps the only useful thing about living in the town of Lima her entire life. She hoped that Rory and Harmony would stop their bickering and follow her, but they didn't. So, unlike Harmony, she didn't turn around and ask if they were coming- just kept walking. She kept walking and walking until she came to a dead-end street with one lonely street lamp, fighting to maintain its feebly fluttering light. She could understand the poor light- with little left to her, not even her friends, it was hard to hold on to even a glimmer of hope.

Suddenly, her surroundings were illuminated. She jumped back, slipping against the kerb and falling backwards, hearing only a loud CLUNK and then all light disappeared, taking her consciousness with it.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

"Because of you and your stupid future dollar bills and absolute IGNORANCE of past crime rate and lack of ANY FREAKIN' CLUE, I'm going to waste away to nothing in a park, and it's ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT!" Harmony screeched, not entirely sure of what she was saying anymore.

"Yeah? Well... your face!" Rory had evidently lost his mind too.

Harmony gasped. "You did NOT!"

"I did! Come at me!"

_Oh, what is going on?_ Rory thought. This is why they never hung out without Sugar to mediate between the two opposing, yet equally stubborn parties. _Hang on... Sugar... _Before he knew it, he was on the ground, Harmony's foot on his chest.

He coughed. "Before you beat me up, where did Sugar go?"

Harmony took her foot off Rory's chest, and quickly scanned the area. She began to panic. "I don't know."

Rory got to his feet, brushing grass off his polo. "Sugar, where are you?" He yelled.

"Sugar, this isn't funny! Come back here!" Harmony snapped.

No response came. Rory and Harmony looked at each other. Each of them met the other with a look of sheer unadulterated terror. Their soles hit the asphalt before either of them bothered to say another word. Harmony sprinted forward onto a street, but Rory doubled back towards the phone booth. Harmony screeched to a halt, undoubtedly wrecking the heels of her legit, very expensive Converse hi-tops.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Grabbing a map!" Rory yelled over his shoulder, before throwing himself into the booth, screaming through the Yellow Pages until he reached the map of Northern Lima in the back. He tore it out, raced back to Harmony's side, grabbed her by the wrist and kept sprinting. Harmony wasn't expecting that, and her stomach lurched- not just at the sudden momentum, but the sudden thought- Sugar was talking about crime rates earlier... what if something horrible had happened to her? She reluctantly pushed the thought out of her mind- she didn't even want to torture herself with the thought of it.

"Where are we going, Rory?" She panted, barely keeping pace with the surprisingly athletic science geek guiding her way.

"To Artie's. We can't help Sugar at the moment, but we need to help ourselves."

"What? No! We have to find her!"

"She might already be at Artie's place. She knows her way around."

"Well, she thinks she does, but you know Sugar. She's a scatterbrain. Ok, can we stop now?" Harmony wheezed, almost collapsing to the asphalt.

"What if she's not at Artie's?" She exhaled, before gulping in lungfuls of air.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we need some sort of mental security- we need to go see Artie. We're only a couple blocks away." Rory tugged at Harmony's wrist, showing her the map. She nodded, stood, and started jogging alongside Rory.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

_Ow. Light hurts, _Sugar thought. _But why does light hurt?_ Oh no, now her head was hurting. Not just in the perplexed sense, but in the sense that she felt like she had smashed her head against an- oh no. No. Yes. Crap. She sat up slightly, clutching her head. Her still sensitive and squinting eyes were met with a white room, a man in a dark grey suit, and a man in a white coat.

"Sugar? Are you awake?" Holy crap, the man in the white knew her name. Was she dead? Was she being taken to heaven, or something?

"Sugar?" The man in white probed.

"Am I dead?" She asked.

The man in white smiled weakly. "No, you're well and truly alive. Just a little shaken, is all."

"No thanks to me." The man in the dark grey suit grimaced slightly, standing and shoving his hands in his pockets.

"Ugh... what happened?" Sugar groaned, still clutching at her head. The man in the coat- a doctor, she assumed, pulled a flashlight out of his coat pocket and flashed it briefly in each of her eyes. "Um, ow! Light! Hurts!"

"Sorry, Sugar, just had to test your reflex action. Now can you tell us your full name?"

"Okay, piece of cake. Sugar P-umm..." Crap. The moment she told them her full name, she'd be busted for good.

"Sugar? Can you tell us your full name, please?" The doctor asked again.

"No. No, I can't." _Yeah, but not for the reasons you think._

"Oh dear, what have I done?" The man in grey sighed and sat down again, head in his hands.

The doctor picked up the clipboard hanging over the end of the hospital bed. "Concussion, probable amnesia. Keep patient under observation for the next few days."

"What? No! I've gotta- I've gotta- gah, I've gotta get out of here, okay? Can you just let me go?" Sugar sat up further.

The doctor peered at her over his glasses. "Until we can get sufficient identification and a guardian to sign you out, you have to stay here. Besides, we have to make sure something more sinister than a bump on the head didn't happen." The doctor hooked the clipboard back over the end of the bed, before turning and walking out of the ward.

Sugar turned her gaze to the man in the grey suit, who still sat in the plastic chair beside the hospital bed, muttering into his hands.

"Who are you?" She asked him, keeping her tone gentle, more for her sake than his.

He glanced up, clasping his hands together. "My name is Al- Al Motta. I'm the one that almost ran you over."

"Almost?"

Al stood, shoving his hands in his pockets again. "I was on my way home from work- I'm in the business of piano-making, and the warehouse is over the other side of town. I left late and got caught in traffic. I was tired, and wasn't really watching where I was driving, and accidentally went into a no through road, and almost hit you- I didn't hit you, did I?"

"No... I just remember there was light, it startled me, and I stumbled back and hit my head. I wasn't hit by anything before that."

"So I brought you here. What were you doing out late by yourself anyway? Where are your parents?"

_I was looking for a paraplegic boy I don't know because I came here in a time machine. My parents are both teenagers. Gosh, how to put that gently... _"I don't know." Sugar eventually responded.

"You don't know."

Sugar shook her head. "I haven't the foggiest. Why are you still here anyway? I'm not your problem- hell, I was lucky you were there."

"I guess I just feel obliged to take care of you. I don't know why but... I guess it frightens me to see a young girl like you out alone."

"Well... thank you. It's nice to know somebody cares."

Al looked up at Sugar. A wide grin spread itself across his face.

"I'll be right back."

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

"Are you sure this is gonna work?" Harmony leaned against the tree in Artie's yard- well, at least what Rory said was Artie's yard. For all she knew, she could be encroaching on the privacy of a complete and utter stranger- well, a complete and utter stranger her mothers _didn't _know in high school.

"Of course it'll work. Don't tell me you've never done this before." Rory replied, still scouring the ground for stones.

"Oh, yeah, I snuck out of home to go throw stones at somebody's window _so often_ in New York. That's what fire escapes are for, Irish."

"Well, anyways, this is gonna work, believe me." Rory reassured. He drew his arm back, and flung it forward, a small stone flying up to a dimly-lit window. After a few seconds the window opened, and a silhouette appeared, carrying a- well, something that shot darts. One hit Rory square in the middle of the forehead.

"Ow! What was that for?" Rory yelled up at the window.

The silhouetted figure pulled open the translucent curtains, revealing itself. _This must be Artie,_ Harmony thought. The boy was, as Rory had described, in a wheelchair. He wore thick spectacles, and his hair was plastered to one side of his face. He wore a shirt and sweater vest, despite the fact that it was nearly nine at night.

"What'chu want at this time of night, strange voice from below?" Artie's voice echoed from the window.

"We need help." Rory answered. "And we think you're the only person that can help us."

"What? Why is that? Who are you, anyway?"

"We can explain later. Can we come up?"

"Go around the back. There's a tree tall enough that you can climb up to the roof, then up to my other window. And make it quick, otherwise I'm poppin' another couple darts in yo' face."

Harmony blew her fringe out of her face. "Wow, who knew a white guy in a wheelchair could be so damn ghetto?"

Rory smirked, and motioned for Harmony to follow him around the garden bed to the gate. He reached up over the top and unhinged it. It creaked, screeching so clearly through the silent darkness that Rory thought he might wake up the entire neighbourhood. He slipped through the gap in the gate, and Harmony slid through behind him. To their right, an oak with rough bark and a gnarled surface stood, anchored to the soil. Rory looked up. Sure enough, there was a rectangle of dim light, just visible between the branches. Rory braced himself against the trunk and seized a knothole, initiating his ascent, with Harmony following only a few feet behind. Rory was, all in all, a bit surprised, that she managed to keep up- but, then again, she had been taking dance lessons since she was 3. Upper body strength was definitely one of her fortes.

Once Rory reached the roof, he offered out a hand to Harmony, which she promptly ignored, instead climbing further up the tree and leaping lightly onto the roof tiles.

"Stop showing off." Rory hissed.

"I was not showing off, that was a mere demonstration of feminism." Harmony simpered.

"Yeah, yeah, you don't need no man, all that jazz. Come on, let's go inside."

Rory slid the window up the frame and pulled the curtain aside. Artie was already sitting sentient in his chair, staring in the direction of the window, Nerf gun hoisted on his shoulder. His eyes widened significantly when he saw Rory, in his converse and polo shirt. He almost fell out of his chair when he saw Harmony's beanie covered head.

"Wow. For alien invaders, you two sure look familiar." Artie bluntly stated.

Harmony giggled. "We're not aliens."

"Oh, really? Then why sneak into a teenage geek's room in the middle of the night, hm?"

Rory looked at Artie, then back to Harmony, then back to Artie. "You might want to sit down."

"Rory, don't be rude, he is sitting down." Harmony hissed in his ear.

"Oh. Right. Well... uh... you see, Artie..."

"How do you know my name?"

"Well... we're from the future."

Artie's Nerf gun dropped to the floor. "Oh no. Are you my kids?"

Harmony giggled again. Artie looked indignant.

"What? It's a valid question!"

Rory stepped closer to Artie, folding his arms across his chest. "If we were your kids, we wouldn't be coming to you. I'm Blaine and Kurt's son."

"What's with the Irish accent then?"

"I was raised there. We lived over there for about twelve years."

"Hmm. Seems legit. What about the one in the beret?" Artie said, pointing to Harmony.

"Oh. My name's Harmony Fabray-Berry."

"Whoah, hold up. Fabray-Berry? As in-"

"Quinn and Rachel, yes."

"Huh. I had a hunch about Quinn, but I always thought Rachel was gonna be clinging to Finn for dear life, for the rest of her life. Hey, question- do you know where I end up?"

Harmony shot a glance over at Rory. He gulped.

"You-you're doing well." He stuttered. Harmony could tell he was lying, however Artie seemed satisfied.

"Cool. Now that that's out of the way, why are you here? Or should I say, why are you now?"

"Two reasons, really. Firstly, we've lost our friend. Not just in time, but in space. Second, we have to right some wrongs. Our parents are split up in the timeline I created, and we started to fade away. We came back to fix it." Rory quickly scanned the room, noticing a large pad of paper and a sharpie sitting upon Artie's lowered desk. He snatched it up from the faux- wood grain surface.

"Do you mind if I borrow this?" Rory asked the boy in the chair, while hoisting the pad up into view.

"Sure. Keep it, if you want. It's only there to cover that hideous wood grain."

At this, Rory plucked the lid off the Sharpie, flicking it across the room. He pulled the first graphite-soiled sheet off the pad and began to draw markings on the fresh sheet. After a few awkward moments of Artie and Harmony staring incredulously at the Irish boy with eyebrows cocked, Rory turned the enormous piece of paper around to reveal a series of lines and circles, all interconnected.

"The first circle indicates the time I went back to in my first trip in the time machine. As you can see, from that circle extends two lines- also note that they are very close to each other. The top line indicates the timeline that we knew before the first trip- the one in which our parents were together."

"Not all of us, Irish." Harmony interjected, somewhat bitterly.

Artie turned to Harmony. "What do you mean?" He asked softly- he sensed that this was a sensitive topic, but he was oh-so-desperate to know.

"My parents separated 8 years ago."

"Tough divorce?"

The tendons in Harmony's pale neck strained as she struggled to keep her composure in check. "There wasn't even a divorce. One day they were both there and the next... well, neither of them really were."

"Right. Back to the timeline." Rory brought the attention back to his fabulous drawing, earning him a deathly glare from Harmony. He didn't notice, however, and continued with his diatribe.

"The second line represents the timeline after that first time trip. Notice as time progresses, the lines get further away from each other, representing the nature of small causes and disastrous effects in time travel. Now, the next circle, along the second timeline, indicates now- us, here, talking to you, Artie. As you can see, there is another line projected out from this circle- a desired timeline leading to a desired outcome, if you will. We hope that you'll be able to help us restore the timeline to the original state, or as close to that original state as possible. We could even make some improvements on it." Rory prodded the paper with the end of the sharpie. He brought it over to the right side of the paper and stabbed the centre of a circle he had drawn there. "This circle represents the time we came from, the time we are used to." He flipped the sharpie around and started scribbling below the circle. "These are the criteria for our original timeline."

Harmony squinted in an effort to read Rory's doctor-esque handwriting. The list read as follows;

RORY  
>-Parents (Kurt Hummel-Anderson, Blaine Hummel-Anderson) legally married (met in high school)<br>-Living at 418 Pemberton Street, Lima West  
>- Sophomore at William McKinley High School<br>- Born 13th November, 2021 (In Ireland)

SUGAR  
>-Parents (Santana Lopez-Pierce, Brittany Lopez-Pierce) legally married (met in preschool)<br>- Living at 2 Manchester Drive, Lima Heights  
>-Junior at William McKinley High School<br>-Born 4th September, 2020 (In Lima)

HARMONY  
>-Parents (Quinn Fabray, Rachel Berry) legally married, separated (met in elementary school)<br>-Living with Quinn at 14 Narelle Place, Lima South  
>-Junior at William McKinley High School<br>-Born 18th June, 2020 (In New York)

Harmony's eyes stumbled over the first line in her brief biography. Not only did Rory seem to know all this intimately, he obviously knew how to put it down succinctly on paper. Those few words filleted her wide open. She felt so vulnerable knowing that the fact had finally become solid, on paper. She managed to push the mix of fear, terror and resentment away and realised that Rory had actually done his research. God knows when, though.

"So all you want me to do is magically make all that come into being." Cynicism dripped from Artie's words like water from a saturated dishcloth.

"I'm just trying to give you as much information as I can." Rory scratched his head with the marker- the wrong end of the marker- and ended up with a black scribble all over his left temple. Harmony stifled a giggle, which made her feel a little better.

"What did you do to screw up the timeline in the first place?" Artie inquired, clasping his hands and leaning forward in his chair.

"What? Nothing! I just talked to Brittany, that's all."

"Why can't you go back and stop yourself then?"

"Firstly, the time machine is broken. Secondly, it's the first fundamental rule of time travel to never communicate with any past or future iterations of yourself. There was no one else around, I'd be instantly noticed."

"From the sounds of it, you and Brittany weren't the only ones there. Santana must have been eavesdropping, or someone must have told her, if they were there. It's the only logical explanation. That conversation with Brittany must have caused a chain reaction of negative connotations concerning Brittany and Santana, causing them to not get together. This must have also caused some external negative effects, causing Kurt and Blaine to not marry. And something didn't happen that should've, if Quinn and Rachel were to get together."

"Precisely. Couldn't have said it better myself."

"Now just to fix it. Damn, Rory, you dug yourself a real deep hole here, man."

Rory grimaced a little, letting his eyes drop. "Yeah. I know."

"Well, for now, we need to resolve the short term. You're from the future, so technically you don't exist yet, meaning you have nothing. No accommodation, no communications. So you need to stay here for the night, rest up, eat something and we'll sneak you into your parent's lives so you can fix the damage tomorrow."

"You can do that for us?" Harmony asked Artie. She was beginning to get a little overwhelmed at the boy's generosity. "I mean, what about your parents?"

"They're out of town on a business trip, won't be back until next month. Besides, by sealing your future, I'm sealing the one in which I have money, a nice house, a wife and kids. Am I right?"

Harmony looked back to Rory. He immediately turned back to Artie and nodded.

"Absolutely."

Artie smiled. "Great. Feel free to raid the pantry, we've got a few couches in the basement you can crash on, and there's only one rule- don't touch my dad's liquor cabinet."

Harmony beamed at the boy she had quickly come to respect. Not everyone could deal with such an information overload, and then let the bearers of such devastating information stay the night at his house. "You got it, Artie."

"Oh, and one more thing... who's Sugar? Besides Britt and Santana's daughter, of course."

"Well, she's loud, a little blonde on the inside... and lost. So, yeah."

Artie sighed. "Add it to the list of things to do- complete physics assignment, save the future AND find a loud ditz from the future."


	3. Chapter 3

This took forever. School is a... well, it can be an enormous freaking jerkface. So I apologise. Also apologies if this chapter isn't as good- time travel is tricky to write.

Well, now that all the begging-of-your-patient-pardons is out of the way, faithful viewers, thanks for sticking with me (if you're reading this, I will assume you have stuck with me for the past couple months, but if you're new, welcome ). I hope to continue this story until maybe two thirds of the way through season 3, if RIB don't completely screw up everyone's storylines.

PART 3

Harmony woke up half-dangling over the edge of Artie's couch the next morning. She had crashed as soon as Artie showed her to the basement. Rory was still snoozing opposite her, periodically opening his mouth and releasing a gargantuan snore. She looked at the clock on the wall behind her; 10:37 am, Thursday 13th October, 2011. How was it Thursday? It was Friday yesterday. The only time that ever happens is intercontinental travel. She'd stayed in the same country- relatively, she'd barely moved at all.

She groaned. "Just when you think jetlag can't get worse- it turns into time-machine-lag."

Harmony hauled herself off the couch, untangling the polar fleece blanket from around her legs and throwing it over her shoulders in the process, nearly causing the porcelain-skinned girl to tumble to the floor. One's balance is never the best within the first few minutes of waking up, she reminded herself. Harmony trudged her way up the wooden steps to the kitchen. She didn't expect to see Artie hunched over a plate of waffles and his laptop at the coffee table.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" She asked lazily, her voice low and husky with weariness.

Artie looked up at her, his eyes well awake and sparkling behind the thick spectacles. "We're in luck- someone planted a tub of crickets in Sue Sylvester's office. She demanded that Figgins cancel classes so they could call in an exterminator."

"That's almost too convenient."

"It is- Puck called me up last night to ask for my help in pulling off the prank. I turned it down, but he went ahead and did it anyway. It's a good thing he didn't get caught- this one might have been enough to expel him."

"Does this mean you're gonna be home all day?"

"Mhm, should be plenty of time to form your new identities and get you into the school."

"Ok, whatever you wan- WHAT?"

"I figured that it would be the easiest way to communicate with the rest of the Glee kids- I mean, your parents."

Harmony raised a tired eyebrow. "Fine. Hey, you got any more of those waffles left?"

"Sure, check in the oven. It's nice to know we still have waffles in the future."

"Are you kidding? You can't walk 10 feet in a store without running into a stand stacked with waffles. Chocolate, cookies and cream, bacon... mmm, waffles..." The girl's stomach growled, loud enough to be heard by Artie over the other side of the room. Harmony piled a plate with the crispy breakfast treats, smothered them in syrup and plonked herself at the kitchen bench, shovelling them into her mouth with fervour.

"You wanna leave some for me?"

Harmony whipped around, fork held high, ready to defend her breakfast. Fortunately, it was only Rory, who knew better than to steal food from the occasionally vicious Harmony, ever since the beef jerky incident of 2035. He had come out of it with 5 stitches, teeth marks and no beef jerky.

The porcelain-skinned girl pointed her fork towards the oven. Rory took some waffles and sat down beside Harmony at the bench, crossing his legs on top of the stool. Harmony rolled her eyes. Even at 15 years old, the boy still had no idea how to sit on furniture.

The two sat in silence. The only noise to come from within the room was Artie's keyboard clicking as he typed and the munching noises that Harmony and Rory made as they chewed on their waffles. The silence gave the three time to process.

Rory thought about the time machine- he wondered if Artie might be able to help him get the machine to a power source, or to the correct tools so he could fix it.

Artie meticulously constructed identities for the two future teenagers. He pondered on each point of their characters for a while, as if the whole thing was a puzzle, or a game of chess. One misplaced piece, one wrong move, and the entire plan could crash and burn into smouldering pieces.

Harmony, in the meantime, worried about Sugar. Sugar was never as street-smart as Harmony, nor as book-smart as Rory. Was she okay? What if something happened? What happens to you if you die in the past? Harmony didn't think that she would survive without Sugar. The girl had been her rock, her best friend since moving from New York. Without her, not only would her world collapse, but Rory would become completely unbearable.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

The next Monday, Rory shuffled into the halls of a much younger McKinley High School, his hands shoved deep in his pockets and brow furrowed in worry. Artie wheeled up beside him, punching him lightly on the arm as he did so.

"Don't worry. You'll be fine. Everyone thinks you're an exchange student from Ireland, even Brittany. Just be sure to catch her after class, and introduce yourself properly."

"Are you sure me staying with her is really a good idea?"

"You don't need to worry about Brittany. Even if she figures it out... which, I assure you, she won't, she wouldn't say a word to anyone about it. Brittany's more perceptive and understanding than she appears."

"It's not Brittany I'm worried about, Artie- it's the other girl."

"Santana? Don't be too worried about her. She's just protective- if you stick to the story, she won't suspect a thing. But still, she's naturally a defensive person, so don't be too bothered if she gives you dirty looks for a while."

They made their way through the halls to the lockers. Artie pulled out a plastic sleeve filled with sheets of paper, paper clips and a card in the front.

"That contains your timetable, a rough outline of your grade's syllabus, a year-long school calendar and your expertly-forged student card." The wheelchair-bound boy prodded the bundle.

Rory pulled the card out from the bundle, flipping it over and examining it. It read;

FLANAGAN, RORY

SOPHOMORE

FORM C- Ms. GRAHAM

STUDENT NO. 32019

Beside the text was a black-and-white photo of Rory's face. Well, it sure looked like a photo, except Rory had no memory of Artie ever taking a picture of him.

"How did you do the photo?"

Artie shrugged. "It's amazing what you can do with a police identikit and Photoshop."

"You didn't hack into the Police network, did you?" Rory asked, as mild fear crept into his mind.

"No, of course not. My uncle's a police detective, whenever I went into his office, he used to let me play around with the program. Eventually he managed to snag me a copy so I could use it in my own time. Which is illegal, but I made a promise to him that I wouldn't use it for anything other than recreational use. I never thought I'd have to break that promise... but you owe me now, man. You seriously owe me." Artie punched him on the arm again. It hurt a little that time. Artie then wheeled away towards his locker, which was, unfortunately for him, all the way up the end of the North hall.

Rory pulled out the combo locker and opened his locker. He was met with the damp smell of mildew and a combination of stale sweat and men's deodorant. Wrinkling his nose, he pulled his Physics textbook out of his satchel and placed it in the locker before slamming it shut.

Had he known who was on the other side of that locker door, he probably wouldn't have slammed it so hard.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

The noise startled Brittany, and Brittany startled Rory. Rory let out a slightly-too-high-pitched noise of shock. When he realised just who he had seen, he immediately felt the overwhelming need to apologise.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Won't let that happen again."

Brittany's forehead wrinkled in confusion. "What do you have to be sorry about? You just closed your locker."

Hmm. Well, it was hard to argue with that logic. He pushed the conversation aside with an attempt at an introduction.

"I'm Rory."

"I know. I talked to you last week."

This was true. How could he have forgotten? Rory turned a pale pink.

"Oh. Right."

"You're funny. And magical."

"Magical?"

"Well, yeah. You speak funny, you're really nice and you wear green a lot. You're a leprechaun. Also, you're a bit short." Brittany reasoned, without the slightest hint of sarcasm and with the most absolute confidence.

Rory didn't want to contradict her, it was all too adorable. He immediately took a liking to Brittany. Not in the way that he wanted to date her or anything, though that might have been partially due to the fact that he had been warned against it, for fear of Santana's wrath. It was more of a brotherly-sisterly affection. Rory had always been an only child, but he'd always wanted a younger sibling. He wanted someone to teach, someone to protect. Brittany's innocence reminded him of a child, confident yet vulnerable.

"Yeah. Sure, I'm a real-life leprechaun. Gold and rainbows and everything."

"Do you grant wishes?"

"Uh, sure. I suppose. But not right now, I've got class."

Brittany's smile dropped off a bit. "Oh. Well, I'll see you after school, then! Meet me in the parking lot, my mom's picking us up!" She hollered, while skipping down the hallway, her Cheerio skirt swishing as she went.

It was only at that point that Rory remembered what Artie said- he was going to stay with Brittany for a while, at least until he could figure out how to fix the time machine and get back to his reality with Sugar and Harmony. Which, considering current circumstances, could take a while.

Still, Rory couldn't help but feel an immense sense of relief flood over him. Brittany remembered him, even trusted him. Even for a moment, it eased his burning worries. Worries about Sugar, the time machine, Harmony, even. He had no idea how she was doing or even where she was- the enrolment office had screwed up on her application, so she was probably out scouting for Sugar, or scribbling furiously in one of Artie's notebooks at his place, trying to get her thoughts into tangible existence, if only on paper. She had a habit of spontaneously producing a notebook and a pen and letting ink and hand tear across the page-

His thoughts were interrupted by an olive hand flashing in front of his face. He pulled his eyes back into focus. There was a Latina Cheerio standing in front of him, her chocolate stone eyes lasering themselves into his.

"Hey. Rory, isn't it?"

"Ummm... Yeah..."

"I saw you chatting up Brittany the other day. Just so you know, she's... taken. So stay away from her."

This must be Santana, Rory thought. Artie wasn't lying when he said she was defensive, especially of Brittany. Rory thought it best to just be positive. He smiled back at Santana.

"You don't have to worry, Santana. While Brittany is lovely, I'm just her exchange student, not a love interest."

Santana said nothing. She merely lifted her eyebrows, gave her best bitch smirk and sauntered away.

Rory let out a sigh of relief. He readjusted his satchel over his shoulder and began walking towards his classroom, not considering anything but just getting through the day.

~~~SPLHFBRHA~~~

The leaves crunched and crackle under Harmony's feet as she walked through the expanse of North Lima Park. It was absurdly open, and equally empty. The grass rolled up and down on the dirt, sheltered by trees and sliced in two by concrete. It was a shame, really. If not for the trees and the path, it would have been very Sound of Music. Harmony smiled at the thought of her favourite musical. It brought with it so many memories. Learning Do-Re-Mi as a child with her Mom, being driven by her Mama to an audition for the role of Marta (and obtaining it easily), karaoke nights with vegan popcorn and hoarse voices. Every time they had one of those nights, her Mom told her that, once she turned sixteen, she would take her to the gazebo in the park and teach her the choreography for "Sixteen Going On Seventeen". It was the one thing Harmony clung to after her Mom left, the possibility that on the day of her sixteenth birthday, she would meet her at the gazebo. Harmony went to the park one day and waited until nightfall, but still her Mom didn't show. It had even started thundering, too- it would have been perfect. But her Mom wasn't there. The absence of one being turned what would have been a happy and memorable day into a miserable and disappointing one. Since then, Harmony had never been able to watch The Sound Of Music. It brought the memories on far too strongly, and she'd made a point of not breaking down, for the sake of her Mama. Harmony came across a bench and perched on the armrest. She had almost forgotten that this was Lima in 2011, not 2036. She was alone in a time where she didn't belong, didn't exist. So she did whatever her Mama had done with her whenever she felt alone- she clasped her hands together, closed her eyes and prayed.

"Hey God. Look, I know it's been a while, but... I need you. More than I know. It's taken me long enough to realize. Sorry about that.

"I don't think I'm strong enough for this. But I need to be strong. For Rory, for Sugar, for Mama... And Mom... Wherever she may be. Lord, I ask that you grant me that strength, even though I don't deserve it. Give me the courage to make things right. Give me the patience to deal with the situation. Lord... I don't even know what I'm doing, let alone if anyone is listening-"

"Listening to what?"

Harmony lifted her head to find the voice. She couldn't believe the face her eyes landed on.


End file.
